Friday, February 22, 2013

I have been noticing a lot while we have been down in Florida that there is this fascination with evil. A friend of ours had a shirt that said something like, "Who needs a God when you've got a Satan!" We spoke to another girl on the shire on a faire day who was telling us that she is evil. She could not be convinced otherwise, she was evil. She had the black eye liner and deep mope lines to prove it. She is not the only one. Lots of people really really like the bad guy, so why this fascination with evil and being dark and brooding?

I think part of it is that people really do not think about what they are saying and what it actually implies. A lot of the images we think of as evil, like Darth Maul here, i am going to face it, they look really cool. But, it is not really what evil is. Evil in the real world is not just wearing cool make up and a black cape and kicking butt and taking names. Real world evil is much more exemplified by the Senator Palpatine role to stick with Star Wars analogies. Evil is the creepy politician in the background pulling strings and shutting down factory towns to line the pockets of his cronies. Evil is the adult who takes advantage of a child and abuses them because of their position of power. Hitler was evil. I really think that most of these people who claim to be evil do not revel when they think about these things. Does the person who likes Satan hear that her nephew was molested by their local preacher and go, "Yeah Satan!" Does the evil girl from the faire wake up in the morning to find her car stolen and raise the devil horns in the air and cheer, "Yeah evil!" Does the guy who is an evil dude who can't be contained find out his boss is closing down the plant to ship jobs to a sweat shop in Asia and say, "Yes dude, that was so evil!" I really don't think so. But, those are the things that the bad guys really do.

I think what it comes down to is that people are mostly addicted to the mope. We have created a culture that loves to think life sucks. We find the brooding vampire and gaunt pale moping guy sexy. We also idealize the selfish. These two things are coming together to create a pretty miserable society. Very few people are actually decent to each other and we are addicted to our sadness.

We here at the Lords of Adventure (the sword fighting show i do with my buddy John Williams) have fully embraced being good guys. We are also really addicted to the air we breathe and living life to the fullest. I definitely see it taking people by surprise and they don't really know how to deal with it. One thing is for sure, they love it. Being positive and embracing the side of the light is kind of addictive. We have found that on occasion, we will say something like, beautiful morning today! When the mopers have sent us back a "Why is it a good day?" We reply with a truth that is really really primal and deep, "The choice is yours."

That is deeply deeply true. You can choose the type of day you have, you can choose to wallow, or you can choose to live your life deeply and with meaning. Smiling and being positive is actually a lot sexier when you are around it for more than about 2 minutes.